Mated Girl (Wolf Girl #4)(23)

Two guards waltzed out, guns raised at Sage as she lay huffing on the ground. I felt her consciousness stir, and immediately spoke into her mind. ‘Stay down. I think they are going to bring you inside the gates. The fence was spelled and electrocuted you.’
‘Everything hurts,’ she replied, but said nothing more as she just lay there unmoving.
The two guards looked down at her with pity, their pointy fey ears peeking out from the sides of their black baseball caps, and I moved closer inside of the bushes where I was hiding to get a better look. A hundred feet was far when you had to swim that length, but so close when you were hiding in a bush trying to avoid being seen.
One of them inhaled. “She’s a wolf? What the hell is a wolf doing all the way out here?” I was seeing through my human eyes but hearing what they were saying through my wolf who was conscious in Sage. It was a weird out-of-body sensation.
Four other guards came out now, aiming their guns into the trees across the riverbank, right at me, and I slunk backward fully so that I could no longer see them from my human body.
My heart pounded in my chest as I used my wolf’s hearing to listen to what the men said. Sage’s eyes were still closed, so I couldn’t see anything.
“She was ranting about crazy shit. Maybe she escaped from Psych? It’s only a few blocks away on 3rd Street,” one of the guards said, and I saw him point across the river to an area downtown from my hiding place in the bush.
“We don’t keep wolves in Psych on 3rd,” the other said, puzzled.
“Let’s get her inside and ask the warden what he wants to do about it,” another said.
“Rules state we shoot all violators on sight. This smells of an ambush to me,” a new cold male voice called out. I flinched, just as he kicked Sage in the ribs.
Sage’s eyes burst open and she started to sing at the top of her lungs. “They grow babies on watermelon treeeeees!” She thrust her arm upward, arching her back.
The men looked down at her in shock but she didn’t let up. “They rub tortilla juice in my eyeeeeees!”
The fey who had kicked her shook his head. “Okay, that’s just sad. Bring her into medical, but make her shut up!”
One of the fey stooped down and pulled a roll of duct tape from his cargo pants. In one quick motion he ripped a piece off and taped it over her mouth. Sage thrashed a little, but just enough to seem scared of the tape and not enough to be a threat. The guard then hauled her to her feet, pulled her hands behind her back, and walked her inside. Excitement thrummed through me. It was happening.
The prison break was a go.

 
‘Sawyer, I’m here,’ I pushed out to him. ‘Can you hear me?’
I paced the small grove tucked just inside the thick wall of bushes, but no response came.
Sage had been moved to a medical ward in the hospital. Marmal was still stalking a fey jogger.
When Sawyer didn’t say anything after a long moment, I snapped my attention back to Sage. They had her strapped to a medical bed, and she bucked against the restraints as a fey doctor walked in wearing a white lab coat. The room was on the bottom floor, and Sage’s bed was right in front of a window with pale yellow curtains. The room was actually nice, clean and modern. I was surprised.
“She was found swimming in the river, talking crazy,” a young male assistant said to the doctor, handing her a clipboard.
Sage snapped her head to the female doctor fey, who had long flowing red hair like hers. “The flies are in the universe to my pots and pans!” Sage said urgently.
The doctor frowned. “She may have recently had a stroke. This sounds like word salad.”
Word salad? Was that a medical term?
“Let’s sedate her for transport to 3rd Street Psych.” The doctor signed something on the clipboard and handed it back. Then she held out her hand and the assistant plopped a long syringe into her palm, the needle reflecting the light from the ceiling.
Fear spiked through Sage and I knew it was now or never with my wolf.
‘I won’t leave this place without you. I would die before that happened, you have to believe me,’ I told Sage.
‘I trust you,’ she whimpered.
My wolf leapt free of Sage’s chest then, but at the same time, she went invisible, activating whatever power Pearl also used, old magic.
“Don’t make the sleep come. Lizards are peonies,” Sage whimpered to the doctor, keeping up the act.
The doctor frowned. “Poor girl. I thought the wolves all died in the war or went underground or something?” she asked her assistant, a black-haired male fey with freckles.
He shrugged. “Maybe she’s a refugee.”
The doctor put the needle to Sage’s arm and I felt my bestie’s panic shoot through our pack bond. My wolf was hiding in the corner, waiting to see what would happen to Sage before she started trying to find Sawyer. If they were going to hurt her, we were out of here, and I’d have to find another way to get my man out.
“I like the wolves. They were once our strongest ally before Prime Minister Locke ruined that,” the doctor stated.
I nearly sagged with relief. They wouldn’t hurt Sage.
‘You’ll be okay. I’ll come right back for you,’ I told Sage.
‘Okay…’ was all she muttered, and then the doctor plunged the needle into her arm and the heaviness of drugged sleep took her quickly.
My wolf stayed, watching the doctor and waiting. She wouldn’t leave this room without knowing what was going to happen to my bestie, and I was grateful for that. I felt confident they wouldn’t hurt her after overhearing their conversation, but she wanted to wait one more minute.